Queries on Hempel's solution to the paradoxes of confirmation

Expand
  • Department of Philosophy, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China;

Published date: 05 Mar 2007

Abstract

To solve the highly counterintuitive paradox of confirmation represented by the statement, A pair of red shoes confirms that all ravens are black,  Hempel employed a strategy that retained the equivalence condition but abandoned Nicod s irrelevance condition. However, his use of the equivalence condition is fairly ad hoc, raising doubts about its applicability to this problem. Furthermore, applying the irrelevance condition from Nicod s criterion does not necessarily lead to paradoxes, nor does discarding it prevent the emergence of paradoxes. Hempel s approach fails to adequately resolve the paradox.

Cite this article

DUN Xinguo . Queries on Hempel's solution to the paradoxes of confirmation[J]. Frontiers of Philosophy in China, 2007 , 2(1) : 131 -139 . DOI: 10.1007/s11466-007-0008-0

Outlines

/